But a still more powerful influence arose from the intimate relation which the Christian community bore to the organisation of the tribe, and the extent to which the one was a reflection of the other. The publication of the Brehon Laws of Ireland, and the details with which they supply us, enable us now to understand better the precise nature of this relation. In estimating this, two facts must be kept in mind:—First, that the Irish Church of this second period cannot be regarded as forming one united church under a common hierarchy, recognising the authority of one central head, as may have been true of the church of the earlier period. While the first order of Catholic saints is said to have had ‘one head, Christ, and one chief, Patricius,’ the second order of Catholic presbyters is only said to have had ‘one head, our Lord,’ The church of this period must be viewed as consisting rather of different groups of monasteries, founded by the respective saints, either bishops or presbyters, of the second order, each group recognising the monastery over which the founder of the group personally presided, or which possessed his relics, as having jurisdiction over those which emanated from him and followed his rule.[135] It was thus not one great ecclesiastical corporation, but an aggregate of separate communities in federal union. Secondly, that the abbots of each monastery, whether bishops or presbyters, were not elected by the brethren forming the community, but succeeded one another by a kind of inheritance assimilated to that of the tribe. As we have already seen, the foundation of a monastery usually commenced by a grant of a royal _Rath_ or fort, or of a portion of land made by the head of the tribe to which it belonged to the saint, and in most instances the founder obtained this grant from the head of the tribe to which he himself belonged. These two tribes are in the Brehon Laws termed respectively the _Fine Grin_, or Tribe of the Land, that is, the tribe to whom the land belonged; and the _Fine Erluma_, or Tribe of the Saint, that is, the tribe to whom the patron saint, or founder, belonged. By the law of Tanistic succession in Ireland, the right of hereditary succession was not in the individual, but in the family to which he belonged. That is, it was hereditary in the family, elective in the individual. When the founder of the monastery belonged to the same tribe, or family, as the owner of the land which had been granted to him, the abbacy remained with this family, who provided from among the members of it a person duly qualified to fulfil the functions of abbot. There was thus connected with each monastery, to use the words of Dr. Reeves, a ‘_Plebilis progenies_,’ or lay family, ‘in whom the tenancy of the lands was vested, possessing a regular succession, and furnishing from its members certain _Coärbs_, or successors, to the first abbot, who formed the _Ecclesiastica progenies_ and who, being unmarried, exhibit no lineal succession.